Bible Verses About Idolatry

They have built high places to Baal on which to burn their children in the fire as offerings to Baal—something I never commanded or mentioned, nor did it even enter My mind.

So behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when this place will no longer be called Topheth or the Valley of Ben-hinnom, but the Valley of Slaughter.

And in this place I will ruin the plans of Judah and Jerusalem. I will make them fall by the sword before their enemies, by the hands of those who seek their lives, and I will give their carcasses as food to the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth.

I will make this city a desolation and an object of scorn. All who pass by will be appalled and will scoff at all her wounds.

I will make them eat the flesh of their sons and daughters, and they will eat one another’s flesh in the siege and distress inflicted on them by their enemies who seek their lives.’

Then you are to shatter the jar in the presence of the men who accompany you,

and you are to proclaim to them that this is what the LORD of Hosts says: I will shatter this nation and this city, like one shatters a potter’s jar that can never again be repaired. They will bury the dead in Topheth until there is no more room to bury them.

This is what I will do to this place and to its residents, declares the LORD. I will make this city like Topheth.

The houses of Jerusalem and the houses of the kings of Judah will be defiled like that place, Topheth—all the houses on whose rooftops they burned incense to all the host of heaven and poured out drink offerings to other gods.”

Then Jeremiah returned from Topheth, where the LORD had sent him to prophesy, and he stood in the courtyard of the house of the LORD and proclaimed to all the people,

“This is what the LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: ‘Behold, I am about to bring on this city and on all the villages around it every disaster I have pronounced against them, because they have stiffened their necks so as not to heed My words.’”

And the word of the LORD came to me, saying,

“Son of man, set your face against the mountains of Israel and prophesy against them.

You are to say: ‘O mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Lord GOD! This is what the Lord GOD says to the mountains and hills, to the ravines and valleys: I am about to bring a sword against you, and I will destroy your high places.

Your altars will be demolished and your incense altars will be smashed; and I will cast down your slain before your idols.

I will lay the corpses of the Israelites before their idols and scatter your bones around your altars.

Wherever you live, the cities will be laid waste and the high places will be demolished, so that your altars will be laid waste and desecrated, your idols smashed and obliterated, your incense altars cut down, and your works blotted out.

The slain will fall among you, and you will know that I am the LORD.

Yet I will leave a remnant, for some of you will escape the sword when you are scattered among the nations and throughout the lands.

Then in the nations to which they have been carried captive, your survivors will remember Me—how I have been grieved by their adulterous hearts that turned away from Me, and by their eyes that lusted after idols. So they will loathe themselves for the evil they have done and for all their abominations.

And they will know that I am the LORD; I did not declare in vain that I would bring this calamity upon them.

This is what the Lord GOD says: Clap your hands, stomp your feet, and cry out “Alas!” because of all the wicked abominations of the house of Israel, who will fall by sword and famine and plague.

He who is far off will die by the plague, he who is near will fall by the sword, and he who remains will die by famine. So I will vent My fury upon them.

Then you will know that I am the LORD, when their slain lie among their idols around their altars, on every high hill, on all the mountaintops, and under every green tree and leafy oak—the places where they offered fragrant incense to all their idols.

I will stretch out My hand against them, and wherever they live I will make the land a desolate waste, from the wilderness to Diblah. Then they will know that I am the LORD.’”